Clinton Speechwriter’s Memo: Address the Racial Divide

Updated to add details on the context of the memo and ties to the O.J. Simpson verdict.

On October 12, 1995, speechwriter David Shipley wrote to Don Baer, George Stephanopoulos, Ann Lewis, Bill Curry and Dick Morris—some of President Bill Clinton’s top advisers—and emphasized the need for the president to address racism in the wake of the O.J. Simpson trial verdict.

In the so-called trial of the century, Mr. Simpson was found not guilty of murdering his ex-wife and her friend, and feelings about the verdict split to a large degree along racial lines — many African Americans questioned the police investigation and the evidence, while many white Americans believed the evidence pointed toward a conviction.

“The whole country is waiting for the President to talk about the racial divide. If he does not step up to the plate, it will be seen as an abdication of leadership,” Mr. Shipley wrote.

In his note, among the thousands of pages of records from the Clinton presidency released Friday, Mr. Shipley said Mr. Clinton was “one of the few American leaders with the credibility to address both blacks and whites — more than the G.O.P.; almost as much as [former Secretary of State Colin] Powell. In fact, if he demonstrates that he can bring people together now, he could preempt the vision of Powell as the only leader who can erase division and bring us together.”

(Mr. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George H. W. Bush, was seen at the time as a formidable presidential contender to challenge Mr. Clinton. He later decided not to run; he would subsequently serve as secretary of state under President George W. Bush; he also endorsed Barack Obama in both of his runs for president but remained a Republican.)

Less than week after Mr. Shipley’s letter, the president delivered a speech tackling race. According to a CNN transcript, he said: “White Americans and Black Americans often see the same world in drastically different ways. Ways that go beyond and beneath the Simpson trial and its aftermath, which brought these perceptions so starkly into the open.” He called for a cleansing of the criminal justice system to “root out the remnants of racism.”

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